TL;DR version:

 I quit my Ph.D. program to become a professional donor until extreme world poverty is eliminated (my aim is to earn as much as I can and donate most of it to the best charities). True story.

Long version:

 I started a Ph.D. program in Educational Psychology because I had high hopes that my eventual position as a tenured professor would be sweet all around. I thought that as a professor I would be able to do research on issues of great consequence for students and contribute towards implementing these and other important research findings into the school system. There are many interventions that are cheap to implement and have been shown to benefit students immensely; I hoped I could charge forward and help students who’d benefit most, soon enough. Unfortunately, it seems that the academic field of education is more geared at best towards just finding facts about what works; there is nearly no path between this knowledge and school practices. Those in power to implement these findings usually ignore the best evidence and act based on ideology or some other selfish interest. Foolish me – to spend so much time in the program without researching if my goals would be achieved.

 One response to my pessimism can be “But Boris, where are you going to find a single place where you could have a large positive impact? All careers are like that!” And it may be precisely because I have found an answer to this question that my motivation to become an academic was undercut. There are millions of people on earth that are living in extreme poverty, millions of children dying, and each of us can do an immense amount of good by helping the ones in most need – them. All this can be accomplished by choosing to donate some fraction of one’s earnings to the charities that are most effective at eliminating some of these problems. By donating even as little as 10% of my income I could reasonably expect to prevent 8 deaths (and give long-lasting life instead) every single year.

 Entering a paying career sooner rather than later I can expect to maximize my life-time earnings and thus donations. Teaching mathematics has brought me great pleasure so far so I think I will end up being a teacher (New Jersey is the 3rd highest paying state for teachers & I am already qualified). A teaching job will also give me summers off, allowing me to find additional income if I so choose (I intend to keep my eyes open to more lucrative opportunities in life as well, e.g. becoming an actuary).

 Based on my past spending experience, I suspect I will be able to live on far less than $20,000 for many more years. If I can manage it, I hope to donate away everything I earn above that figure to the best charities. I am 26 years old and I may still be young and foolish and idealistic, but I hope that I stick to my decision. I have been donating 10% of my pre-tax income to VillageReach (the best charity I can find so far) for over a year and it been very easy. I know I’ll keep giving at least 10%, I’m sure I’ll be able to give more as soon as my income goes up even a bit, I just hope I’ll be able to earn significantly more in my life than an average teacher.

 I am exceptionally lucky that I ended up living in such a rich society that I can provide all of life’s necessities for myself: food, shelter, and clothing while also being able to do so much good for many others. My decision to start giving evolved over the past four years –amongst other things– through attending lectures given by professor Larry Temkin, reading works by Peter Singer, and talking to inspiring people like Nick Beckstead, Mark Lee, and Toby Ord. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Sincerely,

Boris Yakubchik
June 6, 2011

References:
Saving 8 lives/year http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/the-problem/how-we-can-help.php
An essay by Peter Singer http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm
Nick Beckstead & Mark Lee http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZKh0M9x8s4

That sounds like a reasonable choice -- good luck with the transition! Any thoughts on how you'll spend your summers off? I think promoting the meme of professional-donor-ship (as you're doing right now, actually) could be very cost-effective.

you legend! what do you do to live on less than $20, 000?

Thanks for the support

Ruairi wrote:what do you do to live on less than $20, 000?

I'm young and in good health; I conveniently already have a car (a near-must for non-city dwelling US residents); I don't spend much beyond necessities.

I found an apartment in a college town (where I was a student): $355/month (small attic room with a tiny window; livable). I almost never eat out, buy in-season veggies (cheaper & fresher) and cook them: $150/month. Add in about $100 for utilities + cellphone; $80 for gas (I drive a lot - to work - tutoring mathematics); add a bit more for misc spending; it's still under $800. Had I not been paying for college ($4000 just for the spring semester this year), I'd be RICH

Awesome, Boris!

Do you pay for health insurance? How much does it cost?

As far as in-season veggies, I've begun saving a lot on grocery bills by eating weeds out of a grassy spot near my apartment: Dandelions, clover flowers, etc. (Try searching "edible weeds" for examples.)

Thank you for being a person in there trying. I like a phrase attributed to Gandhi "Experiments in Truth." Might also be called Experiments in Authenticity. I just encourage you to not be like a hard-shell Baptist and stick with something clearly not working. For example, what if you meet someone and the two of you fall in love and it feels right to have a somewhat more conventional lifestyle? Well, people who live 20% under their means and give 10% is still a powerful example.

I have also done some tutoring and in fact am gearing up to start offering SAT tutoring. My thinking is, if through word of mouth and some advertising I can build up to, say, 20 students for Saturday morning, charging each student $45, well now, suddenly that's some real money. And yes, I would be competing with Kaplan and Princeton and so forth. So be it.

Alan Dawrst wrote:Do you pay for health insurance? How much does it cost?

I do not have health insurance. It's a gamble but I have been superbly healthy over my lifetime; I'm betting it will continue for at least a decade or two more.

Snow Leopard wrote:...I just encourage you to not be like a hard-shell Baptist and stick with something clearly not working. For example, what if you meet someone and the two of you fall in love and it feels right to have a somewhat more conventional lifestyle? Well, people who live 20% under their means and give 10% is still a powerful example.

Excellent point; I am willing to change in circumstances that warrant it. As of now I don't think I'll have a child unless the world improves significantly and I am pretty sure I will be able to find someone who understands and accepts my frugality. If I don't, I'll probably ease off a bit; we'll see.

Snow Leopard wrote:...[if] I can build up to, say, 20 students for Saturday morning, charging each student $45, well now, suddenly that's some real money.

Tutoring is very lucrative; it's not easy to get many students, but in time it happens if they think you're good. I'm not sure if you'd be able to get a class where each student pays this much, but charging more than that for individual students is excellent enough already

Alan Dawrst wrote:I've begun saving a lot on grocery bills by eating weeds out of a grassy spot near my apartment: Dandelions, clover flowers, etc. (Try searching "edible weeds" for examples.)

was just reading this and thought i should mentioned though im sure you know anyway that if they're in an area sprayed with pesticides that might not be a good idea or generally animal waste or whatever though i imagine washing them would be pretty good? i dunno much at all on the subject really just thought i should throw it out there

yboris wrote:I almost never eat out, buy in-season veggies (cheaper & fresher) and cook them: $150/month.

Given that vegetables are fairly expensive, do you know if a diet high in grains, supplemented with peas/soybeans/other protein sources, and vitamins would be as healthy? Or are you mainly just choosing lots of veggies bc they taste good?

Ruairi wrote:if they're in an area sprayed with pesticides that might not be a good idea or generally animal waste or whatever though i imagine washing them would be pretty good?

Yep, you're right. This particular area isn't sprayed (it's an abandoned patch of grass that no one uses). But washing to remove animal wastes is a good idea.

4iner, vegies are good in many ways.

Here are some characteristics that they share with grains:
low calories, high carbs, low fat, low salt, high fibre, low cholesterol. E.g. to some extent vegies are healthy because of what they do NOT contain. If this was the end of the story, then eating just grain and no vegies would be fine. But there's more to it.

Vegies are healthy because they contain a lot of vitamins. Vitamin A, B6, B6, C etc. iron. This is where the potential problem lies.

There are a lot of vitamins in all popular cereals, because they are fortified with the stuff. However, if you decide to eat significantly less vegies than normal, you would want to seek some nutritional advice because that's where things can get complicated and also that's where your health can be effected.

You can get a general sense of the complexity of the problem here:
http://www.veganpeace.com/nutrient_info ... ables2.htm
http://www.veganpeace.com/nutrient_info ... rains2.htm

or how simple you can make things by following the standard instructions:
http://www.veganpeace.com/nutrient_info ... yramid.htm

RyanCarey wrote:Vegies are healthy because they contain a low of vitamins.

I think that's a misspelling of lot.

The value of vegetables seems to be more than the sum of their vitamins, because eating just a multivitamin doesn't have the same benefit (and may not have any benefit at all for most people).

Alan Dawrst wrote:The value of vegetables seems to be more than the sum of their vitamins, because eating just a multivitamin doesn't have the same benefit (and may not have any benefit at all for most people).

I'd be interested to see the research that's been done in that area. Can you link where you found that out?

4iner wrote:I'd be interested to see the research that's been done in that area. Can you link where you found that out?

The issue about taking vitamins vs eating veggies is a bit of a false dichotomy unless you are currently on an meat-only diet. To answer your question, you could find studies on the role of fiber in the diet (google "fiber and constipation" if you have nothing better to do). There is some debate about the link between meat vs veggies (or fiber) and health, but here is a meta-analysis that suggests there is some small benefit for eating more veggies/fiber: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/ ... 0.abstract

Depending how you define veggies (do you mean to include all plant-based food?) I'm not sure if the point of the argument was to say that an exclusively meat-based diet is better than one that includes some veggies (or is better than an exclusively vegan diet). I have read somewhere that people on lacto-vegetarian diets (plant-based plus dairy) have a longer expected life that vegans, but I don't have the citation.

If you want to see studies on the link between meat and cancer (there is some debate about exactly which types of cancer and what the effect size is), try
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=mea ... _sdt=1%2C5
and once again, you might want to look for mata-analysis or review articles because of the complexity of the studies.

Thanks, rehoot. I think the question wasn't so much about meat vs. veggies but about grains vs. greens.

4iner, I can't recall specific sources, unfortunately. It seems to be general wisdom in the nutrition community that real veggies do more than substitutes. As far as multivitamins having questionable value, see, e.g., the Wikipedia article. That said, I still take a multivitamin. I use Pascalian reasoning: In the very unlikely case where there is a benefit, the benefit would far outweigh the cost (which is just a few dollars a year); if there is no benefit, I lose very little.